I'm not arguing against grounding the airplane... I suppose I'm more process-oriented, so my biggest concern is if public outcry starts to become influential in the investigative process. Do we ground a fleet following any crash in which conclusions can't be immediately drawn? Do we limit it to types that have had other crashes within a given period? Same phase of flight? Same airline? Same severity? Or only when the in-service fleet is relatively small? We can't rewrite the rules for every single crash. Correlation is not causation, and it is essential to consistently apply procedures in order to ensure the integrity of the process.

At this point, that's probably correct, as the investigation has shown evidence of causal links between the ET and the JT crashes. Still, it would be reckless to sit here and conclude that such overlap exists merely because they happened to the same type, in the same phase of flight. It's an intellectually lazy and ultimately dangerous course of action to pursue.

My issue with the MAX is in the systems architecture, where one change can essentially eliminate the possibility of the same set of circumstances that caused the Lion Air crash. That's the fix Boeing has been working on and targeting an April software rollout. I'm sure ET will introduce new wrinkles that may or may not require additional fixes, but if it's attributable to the same issue, where were the calls to ground the type in November when this data first came to light?

The "MCAS deactivation/override" is the runaway stabilizer checklist, which every 737 (and any other type with an auto stab trim) pilot has been trained on for decades.

In addition, it can be deactivated by deploying flaps or engaging the autopilot. Nothing novel here. The manual revisions reinforce this and also provide information about the MCAS architecture, but at the end of the day, the MCAS failure presents no differently than a runaway stab trim scenario and pilots are trained to respond correctly. If they don't, bad things happen.

The media, probably out of ignorance, has portrayed this as some sort of all-new procedure developed in light of the Lion Air crash. It's not.

1723 SFO-OGG 739MAX just got a swap to a 772. Score for the 20 in F and 8 more on the waitlist.

Edit: just thinking about the return pilots. Unlike the FAs, who often work the return flights, the pilots overnight on Maui. Would the return pilots fly out on 1723 (presumably leaving only 6 seats for waitlisters)?

That's also a score for anyone standing by for Y too. Everyone who wants to get to Maui is going to get there.

Should be a lot of open middle seats also. Might be a relatively comfortable ride for most.

You actually mean UA1273. UA1723 is SFO-KOA, which is still assigned a 7M9. Coincidentally, they're scheduled to leave at about the same time. I wonder if they'll combine the flights and do SFO-KOA-OGG?

(Upon further review, it appears UA723 is actually being swapped for a 739. They just haven't changed the seatmap yet.)

Don't you mean 1273?

I guess I won't be effected on my flight into EGE on the Devil's Chariot. Right now the 739MAX looks pretty good. :-)

Probably. Dyslexic fingers :)

It looks like there's a lot of issues going on with this. I'm coming from this as a senior officer in another DOT regulated industry (Maritime)

On the FAA, DOT, and Political Class, the same basic initial response would have been the same whether the President was 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 or 45, the political people just don't get involved right away (911 being a significant exception). All of the later issues sure look to be more of the standard bunglecratic CYA since this will probably have several trails of pointing fingers leading back to the bowels of the agency, including everybody including the technocrats, administrators, and legal beagles..I just got to where I can catch up but it looks like the FAA needed a nudge from the President this time on to get off the pot.

I've seen a lot of things with all of the regulatory demands that often conflict with each other and the fact that there is a lot of politics involved in the process of writing and enforcing things. We've been trying for years in the maritime to get things simplified but rather than looking to see what is happening in the real world it's easier to just issue a new regulation than to clean up the mess.

Given the demand for all of the newest bells and whistles along with the cost/pollution/crew reduction pressures on the airlines, to go along with the regulatory demands things get a lot more complicated. Just looking at my car and my ship along with what I see on FT from the pilots on various issues, there a lot of things that can't be bypassed, overridden, etc. in a timely/ effective manner because of the regulatory restrictions, many of which don't address real life issues( AKA one that will happen less that once in a century),. At least we can usually find a way to jury rig something to get back but given the lack of access to almost everything on a plane that isn't even practical now.

This doesn't excuse anything that my have been a design or operator error, but we do need to look at the big picture on the Big Picture. I remember having a rather animated discussion with a bunch of Greenies who were telling me that I should never, ever discharge any oil overboard even if it meant sinking a tanker full of heavy fuel oil (think black snot) and unfortunately that's where the world has come to. For the record I don't believe that making a mess like that is ever a good idea just because someone is too lazy to deal with things properly.

I'm just hoping that this whole mess gets settled out within a reasonable time and with a real, permanent solution.

Hah, wouldn't be the first or last time the ComPost got it totally wrong.

Went out with a 77W...

I believe this must be approached on a case by case basis. No two accidents are exactly the same, just as no two aircraft, no two fleets, no two airlines are exactly the same. In this instance, it makes sense to ground the fleet of aircraft. In a different instance it may not. Take for example the earlier 737 rudder flaws back in the 90s. While those accidents were the result of the same design flaw, they occurred years apart and at the time thousands of 737s were flying. Even after the second accident the FAA did not ground the 737 fleet. There was very nearly a third of the same crash due to rudder hardover, however fortunately in that case the crew were able to bring the aircraft under control and land it safely.

It would be great to be able to apply blanket rules to every accident scenario, however that isn't realistic because by nature, there are so many factors affecting a decision like this.

Then again, experienced US pilots have demonstrated to be susceptible to pilot error as well, and the value of experience diminishes if the pilot does not have sufficient engineering background to grasp the complexity of the machine and systems he is flying, as experience can only compensate so much for a lack of understanding.

But in the end, it's too early to make judgment calls based on experience (or complexity for that matter), for the reason that we don't know yet if it was a factor. With the majority of the current 355 B38M delivered to customers outside of the US (including the launch customer), the reason for the lack of a domestic incident could simply be probability as well. Let's await the results of the investigation.

Wow. If seat map correct, it went out w/ 24 unoccupied Polaris seats. From a 738 F seat to the new Polaris seat - those passengers (plus everyone who was on waitlist) are going to be disappointed from now on when they fly to Hawaii. The F passenger flying to SFO later this evening on the plane are also getting an upgrade. If I was on the late OGG-SFO flight I'd be scrambling to do a SDC to the 77W.